On Bradley’s arrival, he bounded out of the team car and shook the hand of every single person on the team, including yours truly. It was a real mark of the respect that exists between the riders and their support team, and made my day after missing out on watching the stage.

Everyone refers to the Tour de France simply as ‘the Tour’. Many other races have the same prefix, but only one is sufficiently famous, epic, and so overwhelmingly difficult as to be referred to by it.